Infinix Zero 40 5G hands-on review: Software and performance

Software

Zero 40 5G runs on XOS 14.5.0 on top of Android 14. Our review unit was using the August 2024 security patch at the time of testing. Infinix has promised two major Android updates and three years of security updates for this device.

XOS 14.5 is more or less what you’d expect from a modern Chinese Android skin. Very familiar with many design ideas, mostly from other sources. The launcher, the icons, the split notification and quick settings screen, even the way some apps and events turn into a specific pill shape around the front camera are reminiscent of one thing or the other. You won’t find groundbreaking new ideas here, but you also won’t feel lost.

The good thing about the software experience on Infinix phones is that they don’t go the route that many others in this price range have, meaning they don’t fill their phones with bloatware, ads, and annoying notifications selling you stuff. Aside from the GoPro Quik app, which is part of a collaboration with GoPro, the other apps in our review unit were exclusively from Infinix or Google. There are also no ads in any of the apps and we only received the minimum number of notifications. Other companies like Xiaomi can learn a lot from this.

Overall, the XOS on the Zero 40 5G is perfectly usable, with a decent amount of customizability and built-in features. It’s not the most original-looking design on the market, but very few players in this space offer it at this point.

Performance

Zero 40 5G is powered by MediaTek Dimensity 8200 Ultimate chipset. Our review unit came with 12GB of LPDDR5 memory, which Infinix likes to generously advertise as 24GB since you can also add up to 12GB of virtual memory. We also have 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage, but you can also get it in the 256GB configuration.

The performance of the Zero 40 5G was good because the phone felt quite fast and smooth for the most part in daily use. The operating system makes good use of fluid animations that further enhance the responsiveness. Overall there isn’t much to complain about. The experience here is quite enjoyable.

The phone also offers good gaming performance. Genshin Impact may be a few years old at this point, but it can still be quite challenging at the highest settings. Zero 40 5G managed to deliver a very stable 60FPS or locked 30FPS experience in the headset. Performance was also quite good in the newer Zenless Zone Zero game from the same developer. If you mostly play light competitive games you should have an even better experience.